February 28, 2016
Team Barbet last week…
Photo taken last week because this week, we are living sumarine style with doors opening here and closing there with a selection of who goes out when. Yes, with 2 girls in heat and two males ready to tango, we have to be very careful and avoid any pro-breeder’s “accidental” mistakes and have a litter after 6 months of the last one. That , I cannot accept.It has never happened and I hope it never will. I am extremely careful!
Grooming Vennie!

Vennie has a rather difficult coat to keep long because you don’t really see curls and if you comb her out it is not very nice looking, as you can see below.

here she has been trimmed down to about 4 cms. Kind of poofy, but does sometimes make ringlets. Froggy, behind her has also been brushed out. The difference with him is that the coat is extremely easy to take care of and is of a different construction, and not as fine as Vennie’s.
Dupont and Dupont at the guide school for the blind
This week, I was lucky to catch up with 2 of the pups from the Vennie/Froggy litter of 2015. They were at the school this week, freshly groomed and cut ( one has a nick in the head..he must have moved while scissors were near!). They were castrated last week, and now are starting the almost 2-year long training which will hopefully go well and they will replace 2 Barbets (of mine since 2007) who will be retiring.
They are extremely playful and growing nicely. What a treat!
At the gate…
Birthday girl: Isabeau von der Leibrücke
Surface truth and in-depth dirty lies.
Go to this page in the link and scroll down. You will see a Barbet type, which could be a Portuguese Water Dog or a Poodle, and this poor dog, is part of the lot of dogs found in this puppy mill. Why this dog? Because this is the type of Barbet that is now being promoted in France: dirty, filthy, caked and matted. It is just socuteandsonice but you don’t dare touch it.
It is absolutely impossible for many to adhere to this set of “values”, that being one of the many reasons the breed is in such dire straights in its home country. Add a dose of incompetence, or lack of knowledge about what a Barbet really is, some bigtime politics, a pension fund looking for support and you have a breed…re-incarnated in the 1980’s and threatened with extinction for some and the other “faction” as one calls it, looking to save what remains of the old line……
http://www.spca.bc.ca/news-and-events/news/news-langley-puppy-mill.html